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What Is Wrong with Social Theory[1]

Herbert Blumer
University of California

MY concern is limited to that form of social theory which stands or presumes
to stand as a part of empirical science.[2]

The aim of theory in empirical science is to develop analytical schemes of
the empirical world with which the given science is concerned. This is done by
conceiving the world abstractly, that is in terms of classes of objects and of
relations between such classes. Theoretical schemes are essentially proposals as
to the nature of such classes and of their relations where this nature is
problematic or unknown. Such proposals become guides to investigation to see
whether they or their implications are true. Thus, theory exercises compelling
influence on research—setting problems, staking out objects and leading inquiry
into asserted relations. In turn, findings of fact test theories, and in
suggesting new problems invite the formulation of new proposals. Theory, inquiry
and empirical fact are interwoven in a texture of operation with theory guiding
inquiry, inquiry seeking and isolating facts, and facts affecting theory. The
fruitfulness of their interplay is the means by which an empirical science
develops.

Compared with this brief sketch of theory in empirical science, social theory
in general shows grave shortcomings. Its divorcement from the empirical world is
glaring. To a preponderant extent it is compartmentalized into a world of its
own, inside of which it feeds on itself. We usually localize it in separate
courses and separate fields. For the most part it has its own literature. Its
life-line is primarily exegesis—a critical exami-

(
4) -nation of prior theoretical schemes, the compounding of portions of them
into new arrangements, the translation of old ideas into a new vocabulary, and
the occasional addition of a new notion as a result of reflection on other
theories. It is remarkably susceptible to the importation of schemes from
outside its own empirical field, as in the case of the organic analogy, the
evolutionary doctrine, physicalism, the instinct doctrine, behaviorism,
psychoanalysis, and the doctrine of the conditioned reflex. Further, when
applied to the empirical world social theory is primarily an interpretation
which orders the world into its mold, not a studious cultivation of empirical
facts to see if the theory fits. In terms of both origin and use social theory
seems in general not to be geared into its empirical world.

Next, social theory is conspicuously defective in its guidance of research
inquiry. It is rarely couched in such form as to facilitate or allow directed
investigation to see whether it or its implications are true. Thus, it is
gravely restricted in setting research problems, in suggesting kinds of
empirical data to be sought, and in connecting these data to one another. Its
divorcement from research is as great as its divorcement from its empirical
world.

Finally, it benefits little from the vast and ever growing accumulation of
"facts" that come from empirical observation and research inquiry. While this
may be due to an intrinsic uselessness of such facts for theoretic purposes, it
also may be due to deficiency in theory.

These three lines of deficiency in social theory suggest that all that is
needed is to correct improper preoccupations and bad working practices in
theorizing. We hear repeatedly recommendations and injunctions to this effect.
Get social theorists to reduce drastically their preoccupation with the
literature of social theory and instead get in touch with the empirical social
world. Let them renounce their practice of taking in each other's washing and
instead work with empirical data. Let them develop their own conceptual capital
through the cultivation of their own empirical field instead of importing
spurious currency from alien realms. Get them to abandon the practice of merely
interpreting things to fit their theories and instead test their theories. Above
all, get them to cast their theory into forms which are testable. Have them
orient their theory to the vast bodies of accumulated research findings and
develop theory in the light of such findings.

These are nice injunctions to which all of us would subscribe. They do have a
limited order of merit. But they neither isolate the problem of what is
basically wrong with social theory nor do they provide means of correcting the
difficulties. The problem continues to remain in the wake of studies made with
due respect to the injunctions. There have been and there are many able and
conscientious people in our field, alone, who have sought and are seeking to
develop social theory through careful, sometimes meticulous preoccupation with
empirical data—Robert E. Park, W. I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, Edwin
Sutherland, Stuart Dodd, E. W. Burgess, Samuel Stouffer, Paul Lazarsfeld, Robert
Merton, Louis Wirth, Robin Williams, Robert Bales and dozens of others who
equally merit mention. All of these people are empirically minded. All have
sought in their respective ways to guide research by theory and to assess their
theoretical propositions in the light of empirical data. Practically all of them
are familiar with the textbook canons of empirical research. We cannot correctly
accuse such people of indifference to the empirical world, or of procedural
naivete, or of professional incompetence. Yet their theories and their work are
held suspect and found wanting, some theories by some, other theories by others.
Indeed, the criticisms and counter-criticisms directed to their respective work
are severe and box the compass. It is obvious that we have to probe deeper than
the level of the above injunctions.

In my judgment the appropriate line of probing is with regard to the concept.
Theory is of value in empirical science only to the extent to which it connects
fruitfully with the empirical world. Concepts are the means, and the only means
of establishing such connection, for it is the concept that points to the
empirical instances about which a theoretical proposal is made. If the concept
is clear as to what it refers, then sure identification of the empirical
instances may be made. With their identification, they

(
5) can be studied carefully, used to test theoretical proposals and
exploited for suggestions as to new proposals. Thus, with clear concepts
theoretical statements can be brought into close and self-correcting relations
with the empirical world. Contrariwise, vague concepts deter the identification
of appropriate empirical instances, and obscure the detection of what is
relevant in the empirical instances that are chosen. Thus, they block connection
between theory and its empirical world and prevent their effective interplay.

A recognition of the crucial position of concepts in theory in empirical
science does not mean that other matters are of no importance. Obviously, the
significance of intellectual abilities in theorizing, such as originality and
disciplined imagination, requires no highlighting. Similarly, techniques of
study are of clear importance. Also, bodies of fact are necessary. Yet, profound
and brilliant thought, an arsenal of the most precise and ingenious instruments,
and an extensive array of facts are meaningless in empirical science without the
empirical relevance, guidance and analytical order that can come only through
concepts. Since in empirical science everything depends on how fruitfully and
faithfully thinking intertwines with the empirical world of study, and since
concepts are the gateway to that world, the effective functioning of concepts is
a matter of decisive importance.

Now, it should be evident that concepts in social theory are distressingly
vague. Representative terms like mores, social institutions, attitudes, social
class, value, cultural norm, personality, reference group, social structure,
primary group, social process, social system, urbanization, accommodation,
differential discrimination and social control do not discriminate cleanly their
empirical instances. At best they allow only rough identification, and in what
is so roughly identified they do not permit a determination of what is covered
by the concept and what is not. Definitions which are provided to such terms are
usually no clearer than the concepts which they seek to define. Careful
scrutinizing of our concepts forces one to recognize that they rest on vague
sense and not on precise specification of attributes. We see this in our common
experience in explaining concepts to our students or outsiders. Formal
definitions are of little use. Instead, if we are good teachers we seek to give
the sense of the concept by the use of a few apt illustrations. This initial
sense, in time, becomes entrenched through the sheer experience of sharing in a
common universe of discourse. Our concepts come to be taken for granted on the
basis of such a sense. It is such a sense and not precise specifications that
guides us in our discipline in transactions with our empirical world.

This ambiguous nature of concepts is the basic deficiency in social theory.
It hinders us in coming to close grips with our empirical world, for we are not
sure what to grip. Our uncertainty as to what we are referring obstructs us from
asking pertinent questions and setting relevant problems for research. The vague
sense dulls our perception and thus vitiates directed empirical observation. It
subjects our reflection on possible relations between concepts to wide bands of
error. It encourages our theorizing to revolve in a separate world of its own
with only a tenuous connection with the empirical world. It limits severely the
clarification and growth that concepts may derive from the findings of research.
It leads to the undisciplined theorizing that is bad theorizing.

If the crucial deficiency of social theory, and for that matter of our
discipline, is the ambiguous nature of our concepts, why not proceed to make our
concepts clear and definite? This is the nub of the problem. The question is how
to do this. The possible lines of answer can be reduced a lot by recognizing
that a great deal of endeavor, otherwise conscientious and zealous, does not
touch the problem. The clarification of concepts is not achieved by introducing
a new vocabulary of terms or substituting new terms—the task is not one of
lexicography. It is not achieved by extensive reflection on theories to show
their logical weaknesses and pitfalls. It is not accomplished by forming or
importing new theories. It is not achieved by inventing new technical
instruments or by improving the reliability of old techniques—such instruments
and techniques are neutral to the concepts on behalf of which they may be used.
The clarification of concepts does not come from piling up

(
6) mountains of research findings. As just one illustration I would point to
the hundreds of studies of attitudes and the thousands of items they have
yielded; these thousands of items of finding have not contributed one iota of
clarification to the concept of attitudes. By the same token, the mere extension
of research in scope and direction does not offer in itself assurance of leading
to clarification of concepts. These various lines of endeavor, as the results
themselves seem abundantly to testify, do not meet the problem of the ambiguous
concept.

The most serious attempts to grapple with this problem in our field take the
form of developing fixed and specific procedures designed to isolate a stable
and definitive empirical content, with this content constituting the definition
or the reference of the concept. The better known of these attempts are the
formation of operational definitions, the experimental construction of concepts,
factoral analysis, the formation of deductive mathematical systems and, although
slightly different, the construction of reliable quantitative indexes. Although
these attempts vary as to the kind of specific procedure that is used, they are
alike in that the procedure is designed to yield through repeated performances a
stable and definitive finding. A definition of intelligence as being the
intelligence quotient is a convenient illustration of what is common to these
approaches. The intelligence quotient is a stable and discriminating finding
that can be checked through a repetition of clearly specified procedures.
Ignoring questions as to the differential merit and the differential level of
penetration between these approaches, it would seem that in yielding a specific
and discriminating content they are the answer to the problem of the ambiguous
concept in social theory. Many hold that resolute employment of one or the other
of these methods will yield definitive concepts with the consequence that theory
can be applied decisively to the empirical world and tested effectively in
research inquiry.

So far, the suitability of these precision endeavors to solving the problem
of the ambiguous concept remains in the realm of claim and promise. They
encounter three pronounced difficulties in striving to produce genuine concepts
related to our empirical world.

First, insofar as the definitive empirical content that is isolated is
regarded as constituting by itself the concept (as in the statement that, "X is
the intelligence quotient") it is lacking in theoretic possibilities and cannot
be regarded as yielding a genuine concept. It does not have the abstract
character of a class with specifiable attributes. What is "intelligence
quotient" as a class and what are its properties? While one can say that
"intelligence quotient" is a class made up of a series of specific intelligence
quotients, can one or does one point out common features of this series—features
which, of course, would characterize the class? Until the specific instances of
empirical content isolated by a given procedure are brought together in a class
with common distinguishing features of content, no concept with theoretic
character is formed. One cannot make proposals about the class or abstraction or
relate it to other abstractions.

Second, insofar as the definitive empirical content that is isolated is
regarded as qualifying something beyond itself (as in the statement that,
"Intelligence is the intelligence quotient" wherein intelligence would now be
conceived as including a variety of common sense references such as ability to
solve business problems, plan campaigns, invent, exercise diplomatic ingenuity,
etc.), the concept is constituted by this something which is beyond the
definitive empirical content. But since this "something beyond" is not dealt
with by the procedure yielding the definitive empirical content, the concept
remains in the ambiguous position that originally set the problem. In other
words, the concept continues to be constituted by general sense or understanding
and not by specification.

Third, a pertinent question has to be faced as to the relation of the
definitive empirical content that is isolated, to the empirical world that is
the concern of the discipline. One has to have the possibilities of establishing
the place and role of the specific content, in the empirical world in order for
the empirical content to enter into theory about the world. A specific procedure
may yield a stable finding, sometimes necessarily so by the internal mechanics
of the pro-

(
7) -cedure. Unless this finding is shown to have a relevant place in the
empirical world under study, it has no value for theory. The showing of such
relevancy is a critical difficulty confronting efforts to establish definitive
concepts by isolating stable empirical contents through precise procedures.
Incidentally, the establishment of such relevancy is not accomplished by making
correlations. While classes of objects or items covered by concepts may be
correlated, the mere establishment of correlations between items does not form
concepts or, in other words, does not give an item as an instance of a class, a
place or a function. Further, the relevance of an isolated empirical content to
the empirical world is not established merely by using the concept to label
given occurrences in that empirical world. This is a semantic pit into which
scores of workers fall, particularly those working with operational definitions
of concepts or with experimental construction of concepts. For example, a
careful study of "morale" made in a restricted experiment may yield a stable
finding; however, the mere fact that we customarily label many instances in our
empirical world with the term, "morale," gives no assurance, whatsoever, that
such an experimental construct of "morale" fits them. Such a relation has to be
established and not presumed.

Perhaps these three difficulties I have mentioned may be successfully solved
so that genuine definitive concepts of theoretic use can be formed out of the
type of efforts I have been considering. There still remains what I am forced to
recognize as the most important question of all, namely whether definitive
concepts are suited to the study of our empirical social world. To pose such a
question at this point seems to move in a reverse direction, to contradict all
that I have said above about the logical need for definitive concepts to
overcome the basic source of deficiency in social theory. Even though the
question be heretical I do not see how it can be avoided. I wish to explain why
the question is very much in order.

I think that thoughtful study shows conclusively that the concepts of our
discipline are fundamentally sensitizing instruments. Hence, I call them
"sensitizing concepts" and put them in contrast with definitive concepts such as
I have been referring to in the foregoing discussion. A definitive concept
refers precisely to what is common to a class of objects, by the aid of a clear
definition in terms of attributes or fixed bench marks. This definition, or the
bench marks, serve as a means of clearly identifying the individual instance of
the class and the make-up of that instance that is covered by the concept. A
sensitizing concept lacks such specification of attributes or bench marks and
consequently it does not enable the user to move directly to the instance and
its relevant content. Instead, it gives the user a general sense of reference
and guidance in approaching empirical instances. Whereas definitive concepts
provide prescriptions of what to see, sensitizing concepts merely suggest
directions along which to look. The hundreds of our concepts—like culture,
institutions, social structure, mores, and personality—are not definitive
concepts but are sensitizing in nature. They lack precise reference and have no
bench marks which allow a clean-cut identification of a specific instance and of
its content. Instead, they rest on a general sense of what is relevant. There
can scarcely be any dispute over this characterization.

Now, we should not assume too readily that our concepts are sensitizing and
not definitive merely because of immaturity and lack of scientific
sophistication. We should consider whether there are other reasons for this
condition and ask particularly whether it is due to the nature of the empirical
world which we are seeking to study and analyze.

I take it that the empirical world of our discipline is the natural social
world of every-day experience. In this natural world every object of our
consideration—whether a person, group, institution, practice or what not—has a
distinctive, particular or unique character and lies in a context of a similar
distinctive character. I think that it is this distinctive character of the
empirical instance and of its setting which explains why our concepts are
sensitizing and not definitive. In handling an empirical instance of a concept
for purposes of study or analysis we do not, and apparently cannot meaningfully,
confine our consideration of it strictly to what is covered by the abstract
reference

(
8) of the concept. We do not cleave aside what gives each instance its
peculiar character and restrict ourselves to what it has in common with the
other instances in the class covered by the concept. To the contrary, we seem
forced to reach what is common by accepting and using what is distinctive to the
given empirical instance. In other words, what is common (i.e. what the concept
refers to) is expressed in a distinctive manner in each empirical instance and
can be got at only by accepting and working through the distinctive expression.
All of us recognize this when we commonly ask, for instance, what form does
social structure take in a Chinese peasant community or in an American labor
union, or how does assimilation take place in a Jewish rabbi from Poland or a
peasant from Mexico. I believe that you will find that this is true in applying
any of our concepts to our natural empirical world, whether it be social
structure, assimilation, custom, institution, anomie, value, role,
stratification or any of the other hundreds of our concepts. We recognize that
what we are referring to by any given concept shapes up in a different way in
each empirical instance. We have to accept, develop and use the distinctive
expression in order to detect and study the common.

This apparent need of having to make one's study of what the concept refers
to, by working with and through the distinctive or unique nature of the
empirical instance, instead of casting this unique nature aside calls, seemingly
by necessity, for a sensitizing concept. Since the immediate data of observation
in the form of the distinctive expression in the separate instances of study are
different, in approaching the empirical instances one cannot rely on bench marks
or fixed, objective traits of expression. Instead, the concept must guide one in
developing a picture of the distinctive expression, as in studying the
assimilation of the Jewish rabbi. One moves out from the concept to the concrete
distinctiveness of the instance instead of embracing the instance in the
abstract framework of the concept. This is a matter of filling out a new
situation or of picking one's way in an unknown terrain. The concept sensitizes
one to this task, providing clues and suggestions. If our empirical world
presents itself in the form of distinctive and unique happenings or situations
and if we seek through the direct study of this world to establish classes of
objects and relations between classes, we are, I think, forced to work with
sensitizing concepts.

The point that I am considering may be put in another way, by stating that
seemingly we have to infer that any given instance in our natural
empirical world and its content are covered by one of our concepts. We have to
make the inference from the concrete expression of the instance. Because of the
varying nature of the concrete expression from instance to instance we have to
rely, apparently, on general guides and not on fixed objective traits or modes
of expression. To invert the matter, since what we infer does not express itself
in the same fixed way, we are not able to rely on fixed objective expressions to
make the inference.

Given current fashions of thought, a conclusion that concepts of social
theory are intrinsically sensitizing and not definitive will be summarily
dismissed as sheer nonsense by most people in our field. Others who are led to
pause and give consideration to such a conclusion may be appropriately
disquieted by what it implies. Does it mean that our field is to remain forever
in its present state of vagueness and to forego the possibilities of improving
its concepts, its propositions, its theory and its knowledge? This is not
implied. Sensitizing concepts can be tested, improved and refined. Their
validity can be assayed through careful study of empirical instances which they
are presumed to cover. Relevant features of such instances, which one finds not
to be covered adequately by what the concept asserts and implies, become the
means of revising the concept. To be true, this is more difficult with
sensitizing concepts than with definitive concepts precisely because one must
work with variable instead of fixed forms of expression. Such greater difficulty
does not preclude progressive refinement of sensitizing concepts through careful
and imaginative study of the stubborn world to which such concepts are
addressed. The concepts of assimilation and social disorganization, for
instance, have gained more fitting abstraction and keener discrimination through
insightful and realistic studies, such as those of W. I. Thomas and Robert E.
Park. Actually, all

(
9) that I am saying here is that careful and probing study of occurrences in
our natural social world provide the means of bringing sensitizing concepts more
and more in line with what such study reveals. In short, there is nothing
esoteric or basically unusual in correcting and refining sensitizing concepts in
the light of stubborn empirical findings.

It should be pointed out, also, that sensitizing concepts, even though they
are grounded on sense instead of on explicit objective traits, can be formulated
and communicated. This is done little by formal definition and certainly not by
setting bench marks. It is accomplished instead by exposition which yields a
meaningful picture, abetted by apt illustrations which enable one to grasp the
reference in terms of one's own experience. This is how we come to see meaning
and sense in our concepts. Such exposition, it should be added, may be good or
poor—and by the same token it may be improved.

Deficiency in sensitizing concepts, then, is not inevitable nor irremediable.
Indeed, the admitted deficiency in our concepts, which certainly are used these
days as sensitizing concepts, is to be ascribed to inadequacy of study of the
empirical instances to which they refer, and to inadequacy of their exposition.
Inadequate study and poor exposition usually go together. The great vice, and
the enormously widespread vice, in the use of sensitizing concepts is to take
them for granted—to rest content with whatever element of plausibility they
possess. Under such circumstances, the concept takes the form of a vague
stereotype and it becomes only a device for ordering or arranging empirical
instances. As such it is not tested and assayed against the empirical instances
and thus forfeits the only means of its improvement as an analytical tool. But
this merely indicates inadequate, slovenly or lazy work and need not be. If
varied empirical instances are chosen for study, and if that study is careful,
probing and imaginative, with an ever alert eye on whether, or how far, the
concept fits, full means are provided for the progressive refinement of
sensitizing concepts.

Enough has been said to set the problem of what is wrong with social theory.
I have ignored a host of minor deficiencies or touched them only lightly. I have
sought to pin-point the basic source of deficiency. This consists in the
difficulty of bringing social theory into a close and self-correcting relation
with its empirical world so that its proposals about that world can be tested,
refined and enriched by the data of that world. This difficulty, in turn,
centers in the concepts of theory, since the concept is the pivot of reference,
or the gateway, to that world. Ambiguity in concepts blocks or frustrates
contact with the empirical world and keeps theory apart in a corresponding
unrealistic realm. Such a condition of ambiguity seems in general to be true of
concepts of social theory.

How to correct this condition is the most important problem of our discipline
insofar as we seek to develop it into an empirical science. A great part, if not
most, of what we do these days does not touch the problem. Reflective cogitation
on existing theory, the formulation of new theory, the execution of research
without conceptual guidance or of research in which concepts are accepted
uncritically, the amassing of quantities of disparate findings, and the devising
and use of new technical instruments—all these detour around the problem.

It seems clear that there are two fundamental lines of attack on the problem.
The first seeks to develop precise and fixed procedures that will yield a stable
and definitive empirical content. It relies on neat and standardized techniques,
on experimental arrangements, on mathematical categories. Its immediate world of
data is not the natural social world of our experience but specialized
abstractions out of it or substitutes for it. The aim is to return to the
natural social world with definitive concepts based on precisely specified
procedures. While such procedures may be useful and valuable in many ways, their
ability to establish genuine concepts related to the natural world is confronted
by three serious difficulties which so far have not been met successfully.

The other line of attack accepts our concepts as being intrinsically
sensitizing and not definitive. It is spared the logical difficulties
confronting the first line of attack but at the expense of forfeiting the
achievement of definitive concepts with specific, objective bench marks. It
seeks to improve

(
10) concepts by naturalistic research,[3]
that is by direct study of our natural social world wherein empirical instances
are accepted in their concrete and distinctive form. It depends on faithful
reportorial depiction of the instances and on analytical probing into their
character. As such its procedure is markedly different from that employed in the
effort to develop definitive concepts. Its success depends on patient, careful
and imaginative life study, not on quick shortcuts or technical instruments.
While its progress may be slow and tedious, it has the virtue of remaining in
close and continuing relations with the natural social world.

The opposition which I have sketched between these two modes of attack sets,
I believe, the problem of how the basic deficiency of social theory is to be
addressed. It also poses, I suspect, the primary line of issue in our discipline
with regard to becoming an empirical science of our natural social world.

Notes

Paper read at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Society,
August, 1953.

There
are two other legitimate and important kinds of social theory which I do not
propose to assess. One of them seeks to develop a meaningful interpretation of
the social world or of some significant part of it. Its aim is not to form
scientific propositions but to outline and define life situations so that
people may have a clearer understanding of their world, its possibilities of
development, and the directions along which it may move. In every society,
particularly in a changing society, there is a need for meaningful
clarification of basic social values, social institutions, modes of living and
social relations. This need cannot be met by empirical science, even though
some help may be gained from analysis made by empirical science. Its effective
fulfillment requires a sensitivity to new dispositions and an appreciation of
new lines along which social life may take shape. Most social theory of the
past and a great deal in the present is wittingly or unwittingly of this
interpretative type. This type of social theory is important and stands in its
own right.
A second type of theory might be termed "policy" theory. It is concerned with
analyzing a given social situation, or social structure, or social action as a
basis for policy or action. It might be an analysis of communist strategy and
tactics, or of the conditions that sustain racial segregation in an American
city, or of the power play in labor relations in mass production industry, or
of the morale potential of an enemy country. Such theoretical analysis is not
made in the interests of empirical science. Nor is it a mere application of
scientific knowledge. Nor is it research inquiry in accordance with the canons
of empirical science. The elements of its analysis and their relations have a
nature given by the concrete situation and not by the methods or abstractions
of empirical science. This form of social theorizing is of obvious importance.

I have not sought in this paper to deal with the logic of naturalistic
research.

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